Biology
Welcome to Biology
Biology is the science of life. In this course, you will learn about the many aspects of living things, and how they function. Towards the end of the year, you will take the Pennsylvania Biology Keystone Exam, which we will spend the year preparing for.
Biology is broken up into the following 8 units:
The following Pennsylvania State Standards will be taught in the course:
Basic Biological Principles
The 8 characteristics of living things and cell structure and function
- BIO.A.1.1.1 - Describe the characteristics of life shared by all prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
- BIO.A.1.2.1 - Compare the cellular structures and their functions in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
- BIO.A.1.2.2 - Describe and interpret between structure and the various levels of biological organization (i.e., organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organ
systems, and multicellular organisms).
The Chemical Basis of Life
The properties of water, reactions, and macromolecules
- BIO.A.2.1.1. - Describe the unique properties of water and how these properties support life on Earth (e.g., freezing point, high specific heat, cohesion).
- BIO.A.2.2.1. - Explain how carbon is uniquely suited to form biological macromolecules.
- BIO.A.2.2.2. - Explain how biological macromolecules form from monomers.
- BIO.A.2.2.3. - Compare the structure and function of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.
- BIO.A.2.3.1. - Describe the role of an enzyme as a catalyst in regulating a specific biological reaction.
- BIO.A.2.3.2. - Explain how factors such as pH, temperature, and concentration levels can affect enzyme function.
Bioenergetics
Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration
- BIO.A.3.1.1 - Describe the fundamental roles of plastids (e.g., chloroplasts) and mitochondria in energy transformations.
- BIO.A.3.2.1 - Compare the basic transformation of energy during photosynthesis and cellular respiration.
- BIO.A.3.2.2 - Describe the role of ATP in biochemical reactions.
Homeostasis and Transport
Maintaining balance and transporting materials across membranes
- BIO.A.4.1.1 - Describe how the structure of the plasma membrane allows it function as a regulatory structure and/or protective barrier for a cell.
- BIO.A.4.1.2 - Compare the mechanisms that transport materials across the plasma membrane (i.e., passive transport - diffusion, osmosis, facilitated diffusion; and active transport - protein pumps, endocytosis, exocytosis).
- BIO.A.4.1.3 - Describe how the various membrane-bound cellular organelles of the endomembrane system facilitate the transport of materials within a cell.
- BIO.A.4.2.1 - Explain how organisms maintain homeostasis (e.g. thermoregulation, water regulation, oxygen regulation).
Growth and Reproduction
Cell growth, division, and meiosis
- BIO.B.1.1.1 - Describe the events that occur during the cell cycle: interphase, nuclear division (i.e., mitosis or meiosis), cytokinesis.
- BIO.B.1.1.2 - Compare the processes and outcomes of mitotic and meiotic nuclear divisions.
- BIO.B.1.2.1. - Describe how the process of DNA replication results in the transmission and/or conservation of genetic information.
- BIO.B.1.2.2 - Explain the functional relationships between DNA, genes, alleles, and chromosomes and their roles in inheritance.
Genetics
DNA, traits, and heredity
- BIO.B.2.1.1 - Describe and/or predict observed patterns of inheritance (i.e., dominant, recessive, co-dominance, incomplete dominance, sex-linked, polygenic, and multiple alleles).
- BIO.B.2.1.2 - Describe processes that can alter the composition or number of chromosomes (i.e. crossing-over, nondisjunction, duplication, translocation, insertion, deletion, and inversion).
- BIO.B.2.2.1. - Describe how the processes of transcription and translation are similar in all organisms.
- BIO.B.2.2.2 - Describe the role of ribosomes, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, and the nucleus in the production of specific type of proteins.
- BIO.B.2.3.1 - Describe how genetic mutations alter the DNA sequence and may or may not affect phenotype (e.g., silent, non-sense, missense, frameshift).
- BIO.B.2.4.1 - Explain how genetic engineering has impacted fields of medicine, forensics, and agriculture (e.g., selective breeding, gene splicing, cloning, genetically modified organisms, gene therapy).
Evolution
Change in a type of organism over time, how life evolved on Earth
- BIO.B.3.1.1. - Explain how natural selection can impact allele frequency of a population.
- BIO.B.3.1.2 - Describe the factors that can contribute to the development of new species (e.g., isolating mechanisms, genetic drift, founder effect, migration).
- BIO.B.3.1.3 - Explain how genetic mutations may result in genotypic and phenotypic variations within a population.
- BIO.B.3.2.1 - Interpret evidence supporting the theory of evolution (i.e., fossil, anatomical, physiological, embryological, biochemical, and universal genetic code.
- BIO.B.3.3.1. - Distinguish between the scientific terms: hypothesis, inference, law, theory, principle, fact and observation.
Ecology
Interactions between organisms and their environment
- BIO.B.4.1.1 - Describe the levels of ecological organization (i.e., organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, and biosphere).
- BIO.B.4.1.2 - Describe characteristic biotic and abiotic components of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
- BIO.B.4.2.1 - Describe how energy flows through an ecosystem (e.g., food webs, food chains, energy pyramids).
- BIO.B.4.2.2 - Describe biotic interactions in an ecosystem (e.g., competition, predation, symbiosis).
- BIO.B.4.2.3 - Describe how matter recycles through an ecosystem (i.e., water cycle, carbon cycle, oxygen cycle, nitrogen cycle).
- BIO.B.4.2.4 - Describe how ecosystems change in response to natural and human disturbances (e,g., climate changes, introduction of nonnative species, pollution, fires). BIO.B.4.2.5 - Describe the effects of limiting factors on population dynamics and potential species extinction.